We know that
without any great modification in character, runaway slaves developed
excellent fighting qualities as Maroons, in Trinidad, British Guiana,
St. Domingo and in Florida. But it was in Hayti that the unmixed Negro
rose to the full dignity of a modern soldier, creating and leading
armies, conducting and carrying on war, treating with enemies and
receiving surrenders, complying fully with the rules of civilized
warfare, and evolving finally a Toussaint, whose military genius his
most bitter enemies were compelled to recognize--Toussaint, who to the
high qualities of the soldier added also the higher qualities of
statesmanship. With Napoleon, Cromwell and Washington, the three great
commanders of modern times who have joined to high military talent
eminent ability in the art of civil government, we must also class
Toussaint L'Ouverteur, the black soldier of the Antilles. Thiers, the
prejudiced attorney of Napoleon, declares nevertheless that Toussaint
possessed wonderful talent for government, and the fact ever remains
that under his benign rule all classes were pacified and San Domingo
was made to blossom as the rose. In the armies of Menelek, in the
armies of France, in the armies of England, as well as in the
organization of the Zulu and Kaffir tribes the Negro has shown himself
a soldier.
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